Grave Destiny (Alex Craft, #6) - Kalayna Price Page 0,25
arms and legs remaining exactly in the same position as when he was on his belly. “We must examine everything we can here, immediately, and note it as well as we can. Now that the occupant of this room is dead, Faerie may preserve this room as it is forever, or once we leave, Faerie may take this room and we may never find it again. Same with any physical evidence—Faerie could at any point move it or give it to a new owner.”
Well, that did complicate things. And I had no doubt it was true. On one of my first visits to Faerie, I’d lost my dagger in the winter court and it had reappeared later in the shadow court. Faerie wasn’t exactly sentient, but it definitely had a will of some sort.
While Kordon had very little blood on his back, and no puddle of blood around where he’d been pinned to the floor, now that he was flipped over, we could see that dark blood soaked the front of his pale tunic. Unlike the blood near the bed, this blood was dry and crusted, flaking in places. None of the blood had transferred to the floor where he’d been lying. He definitely didn’t die here.
I avoided the hole in his chest where the sword had protruded, though that wasn’t even where the darkest concentrations of blood were gathered. Falin touched the green skin at Kordon’s neck and it shifted, revealing the deep gash nearly bisecting his throat. I looked away.
Falin tried to lift one of Kordon’s hands, but the goblin’s joints were locked, his hands stuck in position, slightly elevated from the floor now that he was on his back. Falin tried to turn his head with the same result.
“He’s in full rigor mortis?” I asked, trying to only watch from the corner of my eye.
“Seems that way,” Falin said, moving to examine the goblin’s hands instead of trying to break the rigor.
“Is that important?” Dugan asked.
I glanced back at him. “Have you ever seen a body in rigor before?”
He looked thoughtful before shaking his head. “I do not believe so. I’m only familiar with the term from having read it in a human novel once. Honestly, at the time I assumed it was something fanciful the author invented.” I must have looked surprised, because he gave me a small half smile. “Very few tangible things make it from the mortal realm to such a deep place in Faerie as the shadow court, but novels are one I go out of my way to acquire. Fantasy novels from before the Magical Awakening are a personal favorite, but I’ve acquired a few mystery novels over the years.”
The Prince of Shadows and Secrets was a reader. You learn something every day.
“It’s not fictional,” I said. “You haven’t seen it because bodies don’t decay here. But for Kordon to be in full rigor, he had to have been in a realm that touches the land of the dead for at least six hours, probably closer to twelve—if goblin physiology passes through the same predictable patterns humans do, that is.”
“Then . . .” he said, a truly mournful expression on his face. “It truly is already too late to revive him.”
It seemed like I should try to console or comfort him, but I wasn’t good at that. Instead I turned to Falin. “Does the FIB have a medical examiner?” I knew they didn’t have their own morgue. He’d had me raise a shade in the Nekros City Precinct morgue once, but human authorities weren’t allowed to autopsy fae and any fae body found had to be turned over to the FIB. It was part of the agreements and peace treaties the fae had forged with the human government back in the early years of the Magical Awakening. I assumed the fear was that humans might murder fae for the sole purpose of dissecting them for science. So surely he had someone with a forensics background.
Falin shook his head. “The fall court has a bean sidhe who has gone through a human university and internships, but while I have discussed it with the queen, no progress has been made on that front.”
Sounds like the queen didn’t prioritize it. I wondered if Falin would agree to letting Tamara look over the bodies. She was Nekros City’s lead medical examiner as well as one of my best friends. I’d trust her completely with the task, but I doubted the court would feel the same way.